Abstract

The paper analyses the undercurrents of meaning circulating in recent representations of the ocean and underwater exploration. Three broad themes will be explored by reflecting on submersion as a contemporary state describable through a type of marine psycho-geography. These will cover the spatialization of immersion and the collapsing of time: how the ‘inner space’ of the ocean has become a synonym for Outer Space and its narrative of a journey into the potentially dangerously inhabited unknown and how in these dark, breathless depths the alien becomes an un-encountered presence.